Pages

Friday, May 29, 2015

Ichiro
will be appearing on a Topps card for the first time in 3 years when he is
included on the checklist for the 2015 Allen & Ginter’s release coming out
in July. He even signed for Topps, the first time he has done that, with his
autographs appearing in Supreme, Triple Threads, Five Star, Dynasty and High
Tek as well as A&G.

Ichiro’s
signature has never been a thing of beauty but people seem to be more worked up
about what Topps is packing out this year. What is your input?

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Today I am going to cover the Seahawks, Sonics and Suns
that Bo sent me in the package that I started covering yesterday.

The selection of Seattle Seahawks runs from the early
1980s through the 2000s and included some of the best to ever wear the navy and
green. Included in the bundle are players like Sherman Smith, the first
Seahawks RB (and current RB coach), Rickey Watters, Joey Galloway, Walter Jones
and Lofa Tatupu (not one of the greatest but one of my favorites).

Here are some of my favorite cards:

Anything with Steve Largent is a win

Believe it or not I did not have a Boz rookie until this
one got in to my hands. He was a bust as a professional football player but he
was a complete success as the personality “Boz”. I wouldn’t say that I
idealized him, far from it, but I did respect his play. When he wasn’t injured
he was a dominant linebacker and as a high school linebacker I wanted to play
that way. I even changed my jersey number to 55 when I switched positions to
linebacker during my sophomore year (1987) after he was drafted by the
Seahawks. Even now I still like him and have a small Boz collection.

The Seahawks have had some lethal running backs but I
would rate Shaun Alexander as one of my favorites, tied with Lynch. And once
again Bo hits a need for me and included a Madden 07 Shaun Alexander card. I
have always wanted to pick up the Alexander Madden 07 & Madden 08 cards but
I just never bought one, now I can scratch this one off of my “Want List”

I
got a little over 100 basketball cards, a mix of Seattle Supersonics and
Phoenix Suns and one Steve Kerr that I needed for my collection.

I
begin with the set that brought me back in to collecting sports cards, the
1992-93 Stadium Club set and my favorite basketball player ever Steve Kerr.
He
took the Arizona Wildcats to the 1988 Final Four, he holds the NBA record for
highest career 3-Pt Field Goal Percent, won five NBA Championships with the
Bulls and Spurs, built a dominant Phoenix Suns team while the team’s GM and as
a rookie coach brought the Golden State Warriors to the NBA Finals.

Next
up is my second favorite NBA team, the Seattle Supersonics.

When
I saw this card I thought it was so cool. I have some neat Payton cards like the GP Scorers Club autograph I pulled from last year’s 2013-14 Immaculate Collection Basketball,
but this card shows the epitome of GP’s ball handling skills as he flies
through the air with a burning ball.

Then there is the ever-fertile Shawn Kemp (7 kids with
6 women). His high-flying aerial acrobatics were amazing to watch. As an added
bonus the 93-94 Stadium Club includes Kemp flying in for a layup over Steve
Kerr.

A
couple of fan favorites: Detlef Schrempf and Xavier McDaniel, the X-Man
also played for the Suns.

Going
from the Pacific Northwest to the Southwest desert it is time to take a look at
the Phoenix Suns, my favorite team. Any conversation about Top Suns will always
include Kevin Johnson. KJ, now the Sacramento mayor and main reason the Kings
are not in Seattle, was the skilled ball handler that led the team before the
likes of Steve Nash. Like the Gary Payton 1995-96 Skybox I got a KJ version too
and again it is a perfect example of how he controlled the game with the
flaming ball.

Dan Majerle was a shutdown guy and could
slam a ball with power, hence the Thunder Dan nickname.

A
card with both KJ and Thunder Dan? Oh Snap!

There
were three cards that are among the more unique cards in the package, three 1996
Collector’s Edge Key Kraze cards featuring Steve Nash, Ben Davis and Reggie
Geary. Two Arizona Wildcats drafted by the Suns in 1996
(though neither played a game for the team) and one of the greatest NBA Point
Guards.

This
was such an amazing package that I am going to have to dig deep in to my
collection and come up with some special for Bo.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

In
January Bo from Baseball Cards Come To Life picked up a deal containing 40,000
cards and after working through the collection he decided he was going to have
25,000 cards to trade. After some emails back and forth Bo set aside a mixture
of Mariners, Seahawks, Sonics and Suns for me. This mixture ended up being 393
cards, a whole shipping box packed with beautiful cardboard from the 1980s
through the 2000s. It was like a walk back through the past 20 years of my
favorite sports teams and I am loving every minute of it.

Since
there are over 250 Mariners cards I will start with those today and cover the
rest of the cards tomorrow. There are actually so many cards I want to show and
I am torn on where to start. OK, I know where to start… Griffey and Buhner, my
favorite two Mariners.

What
is better than having Griffey and Buhner on the same card? Having two cards
with both of them plus Kevin Mitchell.

Always nice to add some new Bone cards to my player collection

I
have been going back and forth on starting an Edgar player collection but until
now I have left the cards with my Mariners collection but Bo helped me make up
my mind when he sent 19 new Edgar cards.

The
other Martinez, Tino. He was with the Mariners during the magical 1995 before
leaving for the evil empire in New York where he had a much more successful career
including 4 World Series Titles.

A
nice collection of core player for the Mariners

A
super group of Mariner’s pitchers with Randy Johnson, Mike Hampton and Jaime
Moyer. They all went on to have successful careers elsewhere but consider that
between the three they have 63 seasons played, 720 wins, 8703 strikeouts and 2
World Series Titles.

I
came across this by accident but what are the chances that both Topps and Upper
Deck used the images from the same pitch for Erik Hanson? The Stadium Club
image shows the ball just about to be released and the Upper Deck image is just
as the ball leaves his hand. Same shadows, same folds on the uniform, same opened top button and same background.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

This month’s Art Gallery display comes from the 1992
Sportraits promotional cards. These cards were promotional cards given away to
promote painter Ed David’s sports paintings. The reason that I am including
this card as an Art Gallery card is because it is based on a watercolor and oil
painting and it was not inserted in to packs which makes it an oddball.

The painting is from the famous 1989 Upper Deck #1 card,
which was actually a photo that was taken in 1988 while he was with the San
Bernardino Spirits and airbrushed in to a Mariners uniform, but in place of the
Seattle “S” on the cap there is a “G” for Griffey.

I came across this card in Google Images and I knew I
wanted it. The page didn’t have any information so I had to hunt it down and
finally got the card info on Zistle and then went on the hunt to find one. I am
not able to find anything about Ed David or his studio Limited Editions in
Whittier, California but I was able to find the trademark for Sportrait(s)
which was issued on November 1991 and cancelled in May 1998.

As far as I know there were only two series and each
series had 4 cards on the checklist including Cal Ripken Jr. Ken Griffey Jr.,
David Justice and Nolan Ryan. Series One cards were #25,000 and Series Two
cards were #/10,000 each. The Cal Ripken Jr. cards seem to be the most common
cards to find followed by the Griffey card. They are also pretty reasonably
priced, I spent $4.50 shipped.

Monday, May 25, 2015

Today we honor all of the men and women who have given their lives in the service of our country. Since 1775 over 1.34 million U.S. soldiers have died during war and another 1.5 million were wounded. They have given all to ensure that the rest of us have our freedom, for this we thank you and your families.

Friday, May 22, 2015

A
quick rundown of the original post. My nephew, who was 8-years old at the time,
was living with us and was missing his father. His connection with his father
was through Macklemore’s music so when Topps included Macklemore in their 2015
Topps First Pitch checklist I picked up a card for him to help put a smile on
his face. When his father was able to afford a place we sent Dakota back up to
Seattle to be with his dad. Shortly after they moved in to their new home it
was robbed and someone took all of Dakota’s baseball cards including his
Macklemore card, which broke his heart. I picked him up a replacement and sent
it in his birthday card at the end of March but I wanted to get something
special for him to make up for everything so I picked up a second Macklemore
card and sent it to Macklemore with an autograph request and included a letter
explaining everything.

I
got the card back today, it took 39 days, and Macklemore signed the card “MACK”
in gold pen. I think it is quite amazing that he would take the time to answer
an autograph request for a young boy who has had a tough going in life.

I
didn’t tell Dakota that I was doing this so he will be in for a huge surprise.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

In
1888 base ball was still in its infancy and in an attempt to draw sales tobacco companies
began inserting cards with ball players on them in to their products. Lucky for Old Judge an
outfielder named Ken Griffey Jr. from the Cincinnati Red Stockings has been
tearing up the league and is the perfect player to include on the checklist for their 1888 N173 Old Judge Cabinet Cards. There has even been rumor that the hard hitting Griffey
may someday over take Ned Williamson’s seemingly unbreakable 27 home runs in a
single season.

A double dose of 2011 Topps UFC Title Shot, one of my
favorite UFC releases a fighter relic and Contender Autograph Onyx #/88

One of my favorite sets from last year, the 2014 UFC Champions release. This is the Blue parallel #/88.

The final cards are connected to one of my big pick-ups
last year, the 2014 Topps UFC Bloodlines. At the end of December I picked up
the Topps Vault 2014 Bloodlines Bader blank back card #1/1 and earlier this
year I added the Base version and the Ruby version #/8 to my collection.

About Me

I started collecting as a kid but by the time I hit my teens my interests were elsewhere. I returned to the hobby in 1992, just in time to see the junk wax era go in to full swing. My collecting interests have changed over the past 25 years and I prefer to focus on just a couple of players.

My collection is very specific now because I want to keep it controlled and organized, I now focus mainly on my Ken Griffey Jr. & Jay Buhner collections.